Matthew Henry on Judges 3:1-7
We are here told what remained of the old inhabitants of Canaan. 1. There were some of them that kept together in united bodies, unbroken (Jdg 3:3): The five lords of the Philistines, namely, Ashdod, Gaza, Askelon, Gath, and Ekron, Sa1 6:17. Three of these cities had been in part reduced (Jdg 1:18), but it seems the Philistines (probably with the help of the other two, which strengthened their confederacy with each other thenceforward) recovered the possession of them. These gave the greatest disturbance to Israel of any of the natives, especially in the latter times of the judges, and they were never quite reduced until David's time. There was a particular nation called Canaanites, that kep…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Judges 3:5
BY COMMUNION WITH THESE THE ISRAELITES COMMIT IDOLATRY. (Jdg 3:5-7)
the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites--The two peoples by degrees came to be on habits of intercourse. Reciprocal alliances were formed by marriage till the Israelites, relaxing the austerity of their principles, showed a growing conformity to the manners and worship of their idolatrous neighbors.
John Gill on Judges 3:5
And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites,.... As if they had been only sojourners with them, and not conquerors of them; and dwelt by sufferance, and not as proprietors and owners; such were their sloth and indolence, and such the advantage the inhabitants of the land got over them through it, and through their compliances with them; and this was the case not only of one sort of them, the Canaanites, but of the rest:
the Hittites, and Amorites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites; who all had cities in the several parts of the land, with whom the children of Israel were mixed, and with whom they were permitted to dwell.
Keil & Delitzsch on Judges 3:1-6
Nations which the Lord left in Canaan: with a repetition of the reason why this was done.
Jdg 3:1-2
The reason, which has already been stated in Jdg 2:22, viz., "to prove Israel by them," is still further elucidated here. In the first place (Jdg 3:1), את־ישׂראל is more precisely defined as signifying "all those who had not known all the wars of Canaan," sc., from their own observation and experience, that is to say, the generation of the Israelites which rose up after the death of Joshua. For "the wars of Canaan" were the wars which were carried on by Joshua with the almighty help of the Lord for the conquest of Canaan. The whole thought is then still further expanded in Jdg 3:2 as follows:…
